Today we’re announcing that Google’s Local Business Centre is becoming Google Places. We wanted to better connect Place Pages - which we launched last September as a way of organising relevant information about local businesses - with the tools that we offer to help businesses manage their presence on Google.

The Place Pages for businesses from restaurants in Subiaco to dry cleaners in St Kilda, as well as non-business places like museums and parks, help Australians connect with information like reviews, photos, and essential facts to help them make more informed decisions about where to go and what to do.

Around the world, more than four million businesses have already claimed their Place Page on Google through the Local Business Centre, which lets them verify and supplement their business information to include things like hours of operation, photos, videos, product offerings, and more.

To keep track of how your business listing is performing on Google, we offer a personalised dashboard within Google Places that includes data about how many times people have found your business on Google, and which keywords they used to find it. The dashboard can help you to make more informed decisions about how to be found on Google and interact with your customers.

We’re also announcing the beta stage of scheduled business photo shoots. In addition to uploading their own photos, businesses in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane can now request a free photo shoot of the interior of their business, which we'll use to supplement existing photos of businesses on Place Pages. We've been experimenting with this over the past few months, and now have created a site for businesses to learn more and express their interest in participating. Unfortunately, due to extremely high demand, our photographers will not be able to visit every business that applies. The good news, though, is that any business owner around the world can upload photographs to their Place Page by logging in to Google Places.

One out of five searches on Google are related to location, and we want to make sure that businesses are able to be found and put their best foot forward! To get started now, go to google.com.au/places.